Oracle reported profit that topped analysts' estimates as companies increased spending on database software and applications that help run their businesses.

First-quarter earnings excluding some items were 48 cents per share, beating by a penny the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Sales rose 12 percent to $8.37 billion, matching the average analyst projection.

Meanwhile, Adobe Systems, the world's largest maker of graphic-design software, forecast fourth-quarter sales that topped analysts' estimates, bolstered by demand from business customers.

Sales will be $1.08 billion to $1.13 billion in the current period, San Jose's Adobe said Tuesday. That beat the average $1.07 billion estimate of analysts, according to Bloomberg data. Excluding some items, profit will be 57 cents to 64 cents per share, compared with the 58-cent projection of analysts.

For Oracle, Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison is benefiting from more than $40 billion in acquisitions since 2005 aimed at adding more of the programs that help large corporations manage operations and tackle complicated computing tasks. The gains helped the company weather a second straight quarter of declining hardware sales.

"Business is pretty stable at Oracle," said Jason Maynard, an analyst at Wells Fargo in San Francisco who rates the stock "outperform."

Oracle's net income rose 36 percent to $1.84 billion (36 cents per share) from $1.35 billion (27 cents) a year earlier, the Redwood City company said. Analysts had predicted $1.79 billion (35 cents).

Oracle fell 67 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $28.35 in Nasdaq trading. The shares have dropped 9.4 percent this year.

Oracle's portion of the computer-server market declined to 7.2 percent in the second quarter, from 8.1 percent a year earlier, according to a report last month from market researcher IDC.

As for Adobe, businesses continue to use that company's software to create and manage documents, said Walter Pritchard, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in San Francisco. That may be helping offset sluggish demand for its Creative Suite programs, such as Photoshop, triggered by tighter marketing budgets, he said. Still, investors are looking for Adobe to land some major contracts, Pritchard said.

"Ability to capture some large deals could help considerably and will go a long way towards reassuring investors that long-term growth potential here remains," Pritchard, who recommends buying Adobe shares, said last week in a report.

Adobe's stock rose in late trading. The shares had fallen 63 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $24.64 on the Nasdaq. They have declined 20 percent this year.

The company faces other challenges, including shrinking support for its Flash technology. The software, which creates animation and video on the Web, has been shunned by Apple, and now Microsoft says the new design for Windows 8 won't allow the use of Flash in its Internet Explorer 10 Web browser.

To cope with the shift, Adobe is adapting its products to support the increasingly popular HTML5 programming language in addition to Flash. That could help its prospects in the long run, said Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner Inc.

"Adobe has gotten the message," he said. "They realized the world is changing and they needed to move in the direction of HTML5 and Web standards."

Third-quarter net income fell to $195.1 million (39 cents) from $230.1 million (44 cents) a year earlier. Excluding some costs, earnings was 55 cents, compared with the 54 cents predicted by analysts.

Sales rose to $1.01 billion in the period, which ended Sept. 2. Analysts had projected $1.03 billion on average.

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